This article argues that Hardeep Singh Puri’s Perilous Interventions fails to fully grasp the risk of perilous nonintervention. It makes two central points. First, the fallacious critique of intervention reflects a worryingly narrow understanding of the r2p, particularly its third pillar, which overlooks the contributions that the r2p can make more generally. Second, Puri’s account highlights a clear lack of responsible leadership on behalf of India, in particular in relation to its failure to support fully the ‘Responsibly while Protecting’ proposal and lack of critique of the foreign policy of Russia.

Thomas L. Friedman‘Obama on the World: President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman about Iraq, Putin and Israel’New York Times8 August 2014. Also see Aidan Hehir ‘Libya’s Collapse into Chaos Is Not an Argument against Intervention’ The Conversation 27 April 2016.

PuriPerilous Interventions p. 96. Also see the Foreign Affairs Select Committee Report on Libya p. 15. For a view to the contrary see Vilmer ‘Ten Myths’ pp. 25–6. Vilmer argues that Gaddafi did order his army to attack his own population and that on the eve of the intervention the death toll was at least 1000.